This Old House Reviews Team

Wallpaper can transform a plain wall into a color or pattern that matches your unique style. This review examines the best wallpapers available on Amazon.

With tens of thousands of designs and colors to choose from, finding the right wallpaper can be a tough decision. To help you select the wallpaper that’s right for you, the This Old House Reviews Team researched the best wallpapers on Amazon. Here are our top recommendations.

 

Buyer’s Guide

Read our buying guide below to learn all about wallpaper before deciding which roll is best for you. 

 

Wallpaper Type

Wallpaper can be separated into categories based on how it’s applied to your walls. 

Peel and Stick

Peel and stick wallpaper has two layers—a layer with a pattern on the front and adhesive on the back and a layer of backing to protect the adhesive. When you’re ready to apply it, peel off the backing, and stick the front layer to your wall. This type of wallpaper is DIY-friendly, allowing you to make quick and easy changes to your room’s look.

Pre-Pasted

While peel and stick wallpaper has a backing that’s pulled off to expose its adhesive, pre-pasted wallpaper is dampened to activate its stickiness. This type of wallpaper is best for long-term installation, since it’s more difficult to remove than peel and stick wallpaper. 

Non-Pasted

This type of wallpaper doesn’t have any adhesive on it when it arrives, allowing you to control how much adhesive you put on it before sticking it to your wall. While it’s more difficult to apply than the other two types of wallpaper, it sticks to your walls better.

Design

Wallpaper comes in many designs. When choosing a wallpaper, focus on patterns that match the style of the room where it will be installed. For example, if your home has wooden furniture, you may want to stick with a rustic-themed wallpaper.

Material

Some of the most popular types of wallpaper materials include: 

Vinyl

The most common type of wallpaper material is vinyl. It’s easy to manufacture in a variety of thicknesses and textures.

Fabric

Fabric gives your walls a unique look, but it’s more expensive than vinyl and requires more maintenance.

Acrylic

Acrylic is more difficult to find than the other two types of wallpaper materials, but it’s the most durable and the easiest to clean.

Moisture Resistance 

If you plan on using wallpaper in your kitchen or bathroom, you will want a wallpaper that’s washable and water-resistant. A wallpaper made of vinyl is a good option.

Room Size

The size of your room will dictate the number of wallpaper rolls you need. To make sure you have the right amount of wallpaper, measure each wall in the room from floor to ceiling. Multiply the length times the width for each wall to get the square footage, and add the square footage from all of the walls together.

Divide your total square footage by the amount of square footage one roll of wallpaper can cover. If it comes out as a fraction, round this up to the nearest whole number. We recommend adding one more roll to this final number in case you make a mistake during application.

For example, if your room is 500 square feet and each roll of wallpaper you’re purchasing covers 28 square feet, you’ll divide 500 by 28 to get 17.8571429. You’ll round that number up to 18 and add one more roll for mistakes, giving you a total of 19 rolls.

 

 

FAQs

Can I put wallpaper over rough surfaces?

Yes, but you’ll need to either skim and sand the wall or apply lining paper to it in preparation for the wallpaper. The first method entails applying a joint compound to the surface of the wall, allowing it to dry, and smoothing over any rough areas with sandpaper. Lining paper is a more DIY-friendly method that requires applying a liner to the wall before adding the wallpaper.

 

How is wallpaper removed?

Peel and stick wallpaper can be removed by pulling on the corners in a single direction. For the other types of wallpapers, removal may require soaking the material in hot water or a specific wallpaper removal product and then peeling it away with a putty knife. 

 

Can wallpaper be applied over other wallpaper? 

Non-pasted wallpaper can usually be covered with new wallpaper. The other two types of wallpapers should be removed before applying new wallpaper. You should also remove textured wallpaper so that you don’t create bumps.

 

 

Why Trust The This Old House Reviews Team

This Old House has empowered homeowners for more than four decades with top-notch home improvement content in the form of television programs, print media, and digital content on its website and social media platforms. The This Old House Reviews Team focuses on creating in-depth product and service review content to help inform your purchasing decision for just about any item or resource that you might need for your home. The This Old House Reviews Team has written over 1,000 reviews on products in the home space, from cordless drills to kitchen trash cans, lawn mowers, and dining room decorations.

We recommend products in each review using an intensive research process, spending hours combing through the best available models on Amazon. For a product to make our list of top picks, it must hold a solid sales record on Amazon, have consistently positive customer reviews, and offer unique features, among other factors. After narrowing down our list of recommendations, we conduct additional research and sometimes in-person testing to ensure that the products meet our standards. Once we conclude the research phase, we craft a well-rounded, user-friendly article that includes our recommended products and additional information to help homeowners like you make the right purchase.

 

The This Old House Reviews Team provides overviews of select products that are top-selling on Amazon and/or popular in consumer searches. Our team evaluates the products based on industry research, consumer reviews, pricing data, hands-on testing in select cases, and other objective criteria unique to a given product line. Unless otherwise noted, these product reviews are intended to help inform buying decisions for DIY or other non-pro users only. Editor’s picks are made by members of the This Old House Reviews Team.